A few minorities won’t change GOP’s reality

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JEFF JACOBY just doesn’t get it (“Party of minority civil rights? GOP”, Op-ed, Dec. 23). While it is admirable that a state such as South Carolina now has an African-American senator, it is laughable to suggest that the modern-day GOP is somehow the champion of minority rights.

Senator Tim Scott is a far-right evangelical extremist. The state’s governor Nikki Haley, an Indian-American (as I am), converted to Christianity, adopted an Anglicized name, and sprouted a Southern accent combined with far-right politics. In doing so, she pandered to South Carolinians who would not have gone anywhere near her had she remained a devout Sikh and retained her maiden name of Nimrata Randhawa.

The larger point is that in January the modern GOP will have no other African-American members of Congress. They lost the minority vote badly in November due to thinly veiled racism leveled against the president and outright contempt toward immigrants, women, and the LGBT community. Jacoby’s column get an “A” for effort, but an “F” for substance.